Today’s been a rainy, gray day for the most part, and I felt like we needed something hearty to both reflect and reject such an atmosphere! Don’t get me wrong, I do love a dreary day from time to time – but by dinnertime, it was time to perk things up. So as soon as I got home from work, I began dicing up some potatoes from Great Country Farms and put them in a large pot to boil, turning the heat down to Medium once the water started to roll.
As the potatoes cooked – I wanted them to be just barely softened all the way through, retaining a slight crunch – I started in on the sloppy Joes. Over the years, my recipe has gotten simpler and simpler, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I coated a pan with cooking spray, added a package of vegetarian ground “beef,” then tossed in a drained can of sliced mushrooms and sprinkled some onion powder on top. Once the food began to heat up, I added in a small jar of pizza sauce, mixed everything together well, and let it simmer until the potatoes and peas were done.
Speaking of peas, they were as simple as ever to make – we used canned English peas and simply sprinkled some black pepper in the pan along with them as they heated through.
After 20-25 minutes, the potatoes were finished! I drained them well and then put them in a serving dish, tossing them with several pats of butter and two generous handfuls of parsley from the herb garden out back.
Next it was time to serve up the sloppy Joes – we used hamburger onion rolls as the base and piled the buns high with the beef mixture. Several spoonfuls of peas on the side, and we were ready to eat!
I confess that there weren’t many leftovers from this meal; we both came to the table hungry today! And this dinner did indeed brighten up our day and our spirits. In fact, by the time dinner was over, the sun had even come out for a bit before dark. Was that caused by our sloppy Joes? I highly doubt it. But it was a happy coincidence, anyway.
:)